Required Reading: Canadian PM Rebukes Convicted Felon; ‘This Is Not Normal’

By Michael Woyton

Here are a few things I ran across and thought you should know about them too.

A Canadian member of Parliament delivered a blistering rebuke of president-elect Donald Trump from the floor of the House of Commons.

MP Charlie Angus called out Trump as a “convicted predator” and said his country will not be bullied by him, especially over misinformation about Canada’s role in fentanyl trafficking and the possibility of tariffs imposed on Canadian goods.

Watching this video from MeidasTouch is well worth your time:

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Former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama and television commentator Joyce White Vance watched the convicted felon’s performance on “Meet the Press” Sunday and had a few thoughts.

On Substack, Vance said the entire interview was “full of lies and half-truths, with [host Kristen] Welker trying to push back without derailing her ability to cover key points about Trump’s top level plans.”

His priorities included: jailing Liz Cheney; pardoning Jan. 6 defendants and stripping the citizenship of those born in the United States of immigrants here illegally.

Vance also has some thoughts about how to proceed if we believe in democracy and want to save the Republic.

Read her column on Substack here.

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We are definitely back to “This is not normal!”

What the hell are we even doing? Normalizing & green-lighting another psychotic madman. That’s what we’re doing. It’s f’ing insane.

— W Smith Ω 🧢 (@wessmith123.bsky.social) 2024-12-12T12:39:39.044Z

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Historian Kevin Kruse wrote on Substack about the similarities between Trump’s Cabinet nominees and those of another corrupt administration — that of Warren G. Harding.

Harding, too, selected the richest of the rich for roles as Cabinet members and advisors, including the third richest man in the nation at the time, Andrew Mellon, for treasury secretary.

Kruse also dives into the breakneck speed of nominees coming out of Mar-a-Lago and the bumbling way compromising information is being made public.

Read Kruse’s Substack column here.

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And finally, political cartoonist Mike Luckovich makes the point perfectly that we don’t learn from our mistakes:

Lead art by Michael Woyton

Nobel Laureates Come Out Against RFK Jr.

By Michael Woyton

What do 77 Nobel Prize winners have in common with the New York Post?

Both the newspaper and the smarties are against having Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in charge of the nation’s health organizations.

On Nov. 15, the editorial board of the New York Post came out in opposition to RFK Jr.’s nomination by convicted felon, adjudicated rapist and president-elect Donald Trump to head the Department of Health and Human Services.

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The NY Post called Bobbie Jr. “nuts” and said, “it’s hard to see how he’s the guy to lead HHS and its staff of 83,000 to practical solutions” based on his “warped conspiracy theories” that encompass more than just vaccines.

On Monday, The New York Times published an open letter from 77 Nobel laureates asking members of the United States Senate to oppose the confirmation of RFK Jr. as secretary of DHHS.

“In addition to his lack of credentials or relevant experience in medicine, science, public health, or administration, Mr. Kennedy has been an opponent of many health-protecting and life-saving vaccines, such as those that prevent measles and polio; a critic of the well-established positive effects of fluoridation of drinking water; a promoter of conspiracy theories about remarkably successful treatments for AIDS and other diseases; and a belligerent critic of respected agencies (especially the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control, and the National Institutes of Health).”

The Nobel winners in the fields of chemistry, economics, medicine and physics told the Senate that placing RFK Jr. in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services would jeopardize the public’s health and undermine this country’s global leadership in the health sciences in public and commercial sectors.

RFK Jr.’s nomination fits what Trump wants to do to government in general — disrupt it and sow chaos.

Look also at former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who was nominated to be the director of national intelligence. She faces skepticism about her views on the recently fallen Syrian regime and former president and current Russian resident Bashar al-Assad.

Foreign intelligence concerns are wary of Gabbard and might be less inclined to share sensitive information that she could use for political ends.

Reuters said that a European defense official described her “as ‘firmly’ in the Russian camp.” That certainly lines her up with Trump.

And then there’s former Fox weekend host Pete Hegseth, whose mother went to Capitol Hill to tell senators that he’s a good boy.

He’s fighting back on multiple fronts, including accusations of having a severe drinking problem and sexual abuse.

Hegseth, who does not have any experience in running an organization with an $800 billion budget and millions of active duty soldiers and employees, even took to Fox News to deny that he said he doesn’t want women serving in combat roles. It was something that he said a month ago on video.

There’s a new strategy being employed by the MAGA movement to make certain that Trump gets his way with staffing decisions.

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, recently had the nerve to voice concerns about Hegseth’s nomination and, according to Politico, Trump’s allies followed their master’s playbook and decided to lavish criticism and attacks on Ernst and, lo and behold, she is now saying she is supporting him “through this process.”

That doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement, but it is a far cry from what Ernst was saying just a few days ago.

So the question remains, just how afraid are the members of the senate who surely know that the Constitution gives them the role of advice and consent when it comes to presidential cabinet nominations? Let’s be real: These senators know these nominees are flawed deeply, but are they willing to go against Trump.

Here’s to hoping that hard questions will be asked of each and every one of Trump’s picks, if only by the Democratic side of the aisle.

Lead art: Screen grab from CNN

Hey, Big Spender!

By Michael Woyton

You have to wonder when it’s going to hit the fan and the convicted felon realizes that everyone thinks that Elon Musk is REALLY running the show.

Or everyone thinks Elon Musk thinks he’s running the show.

Either way, one hopes the destroyer of Twitter and the buyer of Tesla is making the most of his $277 million investment in the barely successful presidential campaign that will bring former president Donald Trump back into the White House without even a majority of the popular vote — 49.9 percent to 48.4 percent, according to The Associated Press.

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A quarter of a billion dollars is a boatload of money even when compared to a total of $5.5 billion that was doled out by presidential candidates, the political parties and others to influence the 2024 election, according to PBS News.

When the cost of congressional races are taken into account, PBS News said the cost of the 2024 campaign increases to $15.9 billion.

But back to Musk. The $277 million lavished on Trump and other GOP candidates makes Musk the largest single donor in the 2024 election, Business Insider reported.

Other top spenders in 2024 were Timothy Mellon, Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein and Miriam Adelson, who all spent more than $100 million to get Trump and the GOP elected.

Is this what democracy needs? People so rich they can simply open up their wallets and throw cash toward the candidate who will best serve their wallets?

One super PAC of which Musk apparently was the only source of funds was the RBG PAC — as in Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Musk made a single contribution of $20.5 million, according to federal campaign finance reports, to the PAC which funded ads that implied Trump’s stand on abortion was similar to the late Supreme Court justice, the AP reported.

The PAC’s ads claimed Trump would defend women’s reproductive rights while using Ginsburg’s name and likeness without permission from her family, Salon reported.

In a statement, Ginsburg’s granddaughter Clara Spera said there was no connection between the PAC and the Supreme Court justice and it was an affront to her legacy.

“The use of her name and image to support Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, and specifically to suggest that she would approve of his position on abortion, is nothing short of appalling,” Spera said in her statement.

It was one of many lies that were foisted on the public by Trump and his campaign, aided by Musk’s money. See also: the federal response to Hurricane Helene, the number of illegal immigrants crossing the border under the Biden administration and not touching Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

I hope that Musk is getting his money’s worth, staying at Mar-a-Lago (I thought he was relocating to Texas) and tagging along as Trump visits Paris to see the spiffy new Notre Dame Cathedral.

Being Trump’s minder is in addition to Musk’s “official” duties as co-head of a department which doesn’t exist to suss out inefficiencies in the government to the tune of $2 billion.

Talk about your conflict of interest. 

Should Musk, whose business interests entail billions of dollars in federal contracts, be in charge of cutting government spending? Will he take a hard look at his contracts and say to himself, “You know, I think I’m getting too much federal money”?

Of course not. 

Trump wouldn’t, so why would his billionaire underlings?

I sure hope Musk doesn’t spread himself too thin shadowing the adjudicated rapist here and there.

Time will tell, as it always seems to when Trump is involved, if this is just the beginning of a wonderful co-presidency. Sorry, JD Vance. You probably won’t be the last person in the room.

Maybe Trump will eventually realize that $277 million isn’t enough money to have to put up with the constant companionship of a South African oligarch wannabe.

Trump will turn on Musk. It’s only a matter of time.

Lead art: Screen grab from RSBN

Trump Nominates Former Inmate & More: This and That

By Michael Woyton

Another fine upstanding nominee from the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist was announced Wednesday.

Peter Navarro, fresh out of prison for refusing to comply with a subpoena from Congress about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots, was tagged Wednesday by Donald Trump to be a senior counselor for trade and manufacturing.

That job should be fun considering tariffs will affect trade and manufacturing and not in a good way.

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Olivia Troye, who served under Trump as a White House Homeland Security and counterterrorism official, posted on Bluesky that Kash Patel, who Trump wants to install as head of the FBI, has threatened to sue her over comments made about Patel on MSNBC.

Troye, who stands by her comments, is not a fan of Patel and doesn’t think he is qualified run the premier law enforcement agency of the United States.

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Her comments, according to Patel’s lawyers, included that he would lie about intelligence and has made things up about operations, to the point that the lives of Navy Seals were put at risk.

“This follows his threats against media & political opponents, showing how he might act if confirmed,” Troye posted on social media.

Patel has said publicly that he wants to shut down the FBI’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., on his first day and plans to target media members and federal employees who leak to reporters.

Christopher Wray, who Trump appointed during his first term, still has three years in his term and would have to resign or be fired before Patel could take the job.

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The always informative and knowledgable Elie Mystal live skeeted the hearing Wednesday at the U.S. Supreme Court involving a Tennessee law that bans gender affirming care transgender children.

U.S. vs. Skrmetti is the case, and in his opinion, it will likely be decided 6-3 against the rights of transgender youth.

Basically the court’s right wing majority implied that the Equal Protection Clause does not apply to all Americans.

“This is MAGA’s America now,” Mystal skeeted. “Unless you’re a cishetero white guy, things will be worse for you from here on out. 😦 “

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And a little something from Mike Luckovich via Bluesky:

Lead art by Michael Woyton

Biden Pardoning Hunter Won’t Embolden Trump

By Michael Woyton

Yes, President Joe Biden said he wasn’t going to pardon his son. Yes, Biden pardoned his son.

Those are facts, but the hypocrisy on the right and the left about the pardon are anything but based on facts.

No, the president didn’t pardon his son for anything Ukraine-related.

And no, this will not embolden Donald Trump.

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The convicted felon and adjudicated rapist was gunning for Hunter Biden. Trump and his MAGA followers wildly exploited and exaggerated what the younger Biden was accused of and made up complicity of Biden the Elder — calling all of it “the Biden crime family.”

Trump has done nothing but promise revenge on his political enemies — and at the top of the list were the Bidens.

Again, the former and soon-once-again-to-be president doesn’t need anyone helping him do horrible things to people he sees as threats. Trump is already in that head space.

Had Hunter not been pardoned by his father I think it would have been a blood sport for Trump, who would have taken every opportunity to torture Hunter even more just to make Joe suffer even more.

President Biden, in his statement about the pardon Sunday, said it was clear that his son was being treated differently from others.

“From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted. Without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form. Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given non-criminal resolutions,” President Biden said.

He continued by saying there was a concerted effort to break someone who was sober for five and a half years with unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution.

“In trying to break Hunter,” Biden said, “they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

For his part, Hunter Biden made a statement saying he’s admitted and taken responsibility for his mistakes, “mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport.”

For the record, Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of more than 140 people at the end of his first stint in the White House.

The pardons and commutations included such upstanding citizens as Steve Bannon, Elliott Broidy, Lil Wayne, Albert J. Pirro Jr., Paul Erickson, Paul Manafort and Roger J. Stone Jr. Google them — I don’t want to spend any more time thinking about those people.

And also for the record, Trump has promised to pardon his supporters convicted of participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.

That would be a real slap in the face of Democracy. 

Hunter Biden’s pardon? Not at all.

My take on the Hunter Biden news is that trump has proposed creating a network of concentration camps to deal with the undocumented millions in our country

— Asawin Suebsaeng (@swin24.bsky.social) 2024-12-02T02:08:06.891Z

They all asked for pardons.

— Hoodlum (@nothoodlum.bsky.social) 2024-12-02T05:20:57.214Z

Lead art: Screen grab from Google Maps

He Doesn’t Know the Meaning of Tariffs Either

By Michael Woyton

The difference in messages was striking — and not surprising.

In a Thanksgiving Day post on the social media site formerly known as Twitter, President Joe Biden said he was grateful for the trust put in him to serve the American public in the White House.

“May we use this moment to take time from our busy lives and focus on what matters most: Our families, our friends, our neighbors, and the fact that we’ve been blessed to live in America, the greatest country on Earth,” Biden wrote.

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Contrast that to what the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist president-elect Donald Trump posted on “Truth” Social:

“Happy Thanksgiving to all, including to the Radical Left Lunatics who have worked so hard to destroy our Country, but who have miserably failed, and will always fail, because their ideas and policies are so hopelessly bad that the great people of our Nation just gave a landslide victory to those who want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

You have to wonder why he can’t just accept the fact that he won and get on with it. He is a bitter, petty, vindictive person and doesn’t want to let us forget that. Not that there’s any chance of that.

Trump certainly has convinced himself that he won a landslide victory.

While there is no question that the public voted to return to office someone who incited an insurrection against the government, it was far from a landslide.

On Friday, the Associated Press updated its tally of the votes to 76.9 million for Trump and 74.4 million for Vice President Kamala Harris. 

That breaks down to 50 percent for Trump to 48.4 percent to Harris. The previous tally was 50.5 percent for Trump. Votes are still being counted, so that lead could decreased.

Anyone without a massive, undeserved ego would think it prudent to admit that the race was close and work to the best interests of all the voters — not just the tiny, tiny majority.

An analysis of previous elections showed that Trump’s 2024 Electoral College count of 312 was better than his or Biden’s EC votes in 2016 and 2020, CNN reported. While it outperformed George W. Bush’s EC counts in 2000 and 2004, it was far less that Barack Obama’s 365 EC votes in 2008 and 332 in 2012.

ABC News poses the question: “Who cares if it was a landslide or not?”

The article said soon-to-be-president-again Trump is only the latest in a long-line of presidents-elect to “convert electoral success into political capital to pass their agendas.”

There is one problem with that, ABC News said. “Political scientists who have studied the idea of presidential mandates generally agree that they’re made up.”

Personally, I think that Trump just has to claim the largest, biggest, grandest whatever because that is simply the way he is.

Once again, the mainstream media is trying to shoehorn him into normalcy, instead of seeing him as the danger he continues to be to the United States.

And what the hell is this? (It is a real tweet from vice-president-elect JD Vance)

Lead art: Screen shot of JC Vance tweet from X.com

Tariffs: Once More for the Cheap Seats

By Michael Woyton

Has no one told him? Or has he chosen to lie to the American public, hoping they will believe him?

The convicted felon and adjudicated rapist who is the president-elect announced on his social media site Monday that on his first day back in office he will impose a 25 percent tariff on all products imported from Mexico and Canada.

Again, how will you like not being able to afford an avocado?

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The “rationale” behind Trump’s decree/threat is that he wants Mexico and Canada to close what he calls “open borders” and prevent illegal migrants and fentanyl from coming into the United States. He also will put a 10 percent tariff on goods from China.

The tariffs, he said, will be in effect until the crisis is solved. 

“We hereby demand that they use this power, and until such time that they do, it is time for them to pay a very big price!” Trump wrote.

Well, you know who else will be paying a “very big price”? The American public, as economists have been saying all along.

No one outside of the Trumperverse believes that companies in Mexico, China and Canada will pay the tariffs.

As The New York Times explains, “Mr. Trump has insisted that foreign companies pay the tariffs, but they are actually paid by the company that imports the products, and in many cases passed on to American consumers.”

I think we can all be confident that “many cases” will be “all cases.”

Companies are in the business of making profits, and tariffs cut into those profits. Therefore, companies will raise the cost of their products.

Think about produce coming from Mexico being more expensive. Remember Trump’s first day back in office will be in the dead of winter when we rely on imported food, and he’s also threatened mass deportations, which economists said will decimate the crop-picking work force.

Oil is the top U.S import from Canada and the largest category of goods imported to the U.S. from Mexico are components for cars and finished cars, USA Today reported. You may not be able to afford a car, but that’s OK because the price of gas will go up. Oh, and, again, it’s winter and heating oil is in high demand.

You like electronics? A significant amount of electronic goods comes from China.

Buckle up, America. 

Trump voters complained about things being expensive, but it doesn’t look as if Trump has you in mind with his economic policies.

Here are the top goods that we import from Mexico that we all will be paying more for thanks to MAGA.Bravo, mouth breathers.🙄

— Art Candee 🍿🥤 (@artcandee.bsky.social) 2024-11-26T00:06:47.068Z

Lead art by Michael Woyton

Do Not Go Quietly …

By Michael Woyton

Remember the state schools superintendent in Oklahoma who put out a request for proposals for 55,000 Bibles to be supplied to classrooms?

The RFP was so excellently crafted that the specs would apply only to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A. Bible” that convicted felon and adjudicated rapist president-elect Donald Trump is hawking online for 60 bucks. 

Recently state Superintendent Ryan Walters — of Trump Bible RFP fame — issued a directive for a video he recorded praying for Donald Trump to played in all Oklahoma classrooms, according to reporting from KFOR.

Now the nonprofit Defense of Democracy, which believes that public education is a cornerstone of democracy, has come up with forms that can be used by parents who don’t wish their child to have any interaction with Walters.

Karen Svoboda, the executive director of Defense of Democracy, told KFOR that many parents and administrators in the Oklahoma public schools don’t agree with the mandated prayer video.

“We have seen a flood of interest from the state of Oklahoma, specifically from parents who are panicked, who are devastated that Ryan Walters is requiring this and so relieved that there is at least an option that they can use to protect their kids,” she said.

There are two forms: one targeting Walters’ prayer video and another about using the Bible in classroom instruction.

Both forms have places for parents to put the school principal’s name and address, the student’s name and the parents’ contact information.

The form letter about the prayer video states, “In an attempt to indoctrinate Oklahoma students and promote his own public image, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters has encouraged students to join him in prayer. I am concerned and distressed that this violation of first amendment rights might be visited on my child.”

The letter opts out the student by name “of any interaction with State Superintendent Ryan Walters in any capacity” and withholds permission “for my child to view any video or audio recording of Mr. Walters.”

Likewise, the letter about the Bible opts the child out of “any participation in, any class, lesson, instruction, curriculum assembly, guest speaker, activity, assignment, library material, online material, club, or group, that is teaching, quoting, requiring reading, or otherwise extracting content from The Bible.”

Both letters say that, if they are not honored, any and all legal remedies will be pursued.

The form letters can be found and downloaded here.

Defense of Democracy officials told KFOR that they believe the forms will help schools that are wanting to push back on the directives.

Erica Watkins, state director for the organization, said that superintendents or board directors can use the letters to help them make their case to not show the video.

“It’s this 240 parents that we got this email about that don’t want their kinds to show it,” she said to KFOR.

The Oklahoma attorney general weighed in on the issue, saying Walters had no authority under state law to issue the prayer viewing mandate, CBS News reported.

A spokesperson for the AG said the mandate was unenforceable and contrary to parental rights and local control.

It pays to keep in mind that resistance can start small but the effects are cumulative.

#TrumpTaliban: After forcing schools to bring the Bible into classrooms, Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters insisted he would "absolutely penalize” schools that don't show this video of him praying for President-elect Donald Trump.Which denomination will win the religious war?#TrumpCult

— Bryan Dawson (@bryandawsonusa.bsky.social) 2024-11-21T19:20:33.654Z

Lead art: Screen grab from CNN.

Trump Cabinet Picks: Birds of a Feather?

By Michael Woyton

I guess it was too much even for former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz to continue going through.

He was chosen by Donald Trump to be the chief law enforcement officer of the United States. But he took himself out of the running Thursday, saying it was an unfair distraction to the transition.

But the question remains, what do Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth, Elon Musk, Linda McMahon all have in common besides being suck ups to the adjudicated rapist and convicted felon?

Each has been accused of sexual abuse or enabling sexual abuse.

It really is a feature, not a bug.

Gaetz, who was nominated to head the Justice Department as attorney general, resigned just before the House Ethics Committee was set to vote on releasing its report on allegations of his having sex with an underage girl, something he denies. There are other reports of him paying two women who testified before the House and Justice Department more than $10,000, ABC News reported.

There is also the creepy accusation that Gaetz is alleged to have paid — via his “son” Nestor’s PayPal account — to have sex with women, according to a Daily Beast article on Yahoo News.

There have long been stories of Kennedy’s numerous affairs, the cataloging of which in a diary were discovered by his wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, who committed suicide in 2012.

Now, a former live-in nanny gave an interview to USA Today, detailing how, when she was 23, Kennedy groped her. Among her claims are RFK Jr. rubbing her leg under the table and, later, groping her in a kitchen pantry and preventing her from leaving the room. Kennedy said he has no memory of the incidents and apologized for anything that may have made the woman uncomfortable.

Fox News weekend host Hegseth, who was nominated to lead the $850 billion Department of Defense, was accused of sexual assault in 2017 at a conference hosted by the California Federation of Republican Women at a hotel in Monterey, California.

Though he was never charged with a crime, a police report released Wednesday said Hegseth took a woman’s phone, blocked the door to his hotel room preventing the woman from leaving and sexually assaulted her, The New York Times reported, adding that he ejaculated on her stomach.

Hegseth reportedly told police he repeatedly asked the woman for her consent. After the woman threatened to sue him in 2020, he paid an undisclosed amount of money to the woman.

Musk, who Trump has asked to co-head a department that will supposedly slash government spending, has been sued by eight employees of SpaceX for creating a hostile work environment that was rife with sexual harassment, CBS News reported.

The employees claim that he exposed them to unwanted comments and conduct of a sexual nature. Musk has denied the allegations.

McMahon, who served in Trump’s first cabinet as Small Business Administration head, was nominated to be in charge of the Department of Education, which the president-elect wants to eliminate.

According to CNN, a recent lawsuit claims McMahon “knowingly enabled the sexual exploitation of children” by a World Wrestling Entertainment employee in the 1980s. She denies the allegation.

The suit alleges McMahon, her husband Vince McMahon, the WWE and another company knew that a ringside announcer used his position to sexually exploit children, by recruiting them to work as “Ring Boys” who would help him set up and remove wrestling rings at WWE events. The boys were between the ages of 13 and 15.

Trump was found liable last year in a civil trial of sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll, and as New York Times reporter Peter Baker pointed out, “if he gets the team of his choice, he will not be the only one in the room whose conduct has been called into question.”

The soon-to-be 47th president surely must know about the allegations made against his choices. 

He probably just doesn’t care, because these are the people he feels most comfortable around and who will do his bidding no matter the cost to decency or democracy.

Lead photo by Michael Woyton

Trump Tariffs: What Goes Up, Must Go Up

By Michael Woyton

More and more retailers are voicing concerns that new tariffs the convicted felon is so enamored with will force them to raise prices.

President-elect Donald Trump promised all during the campaign that he will impose tariffs in order to bring jobs and manufacturing back to the United States. 

He repeated said, contrary to reality, that the tariffs he wants to see on goods imported from China and other countries will be paid by the foreign country. 

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That is not how tariffs work. 

According to Investopedia, a tariff is a tax used to restrict imports, by increasing “the price of goods and services purchased from another country, making them less attractive to domestic consumers.”

Why are they less attractive to domestic consumers? Because the price increase is passed along to the receiving country’s consumers.

China is not going to pay for the tariff Trump said he will be imposing on its goods. We the consumers who still want to buy those goods will be paying the increased price.

And Mexico never paid for the wall.

GOP Rep. Troy Nehls: “If Donald Trump says tariffs work, tariffs work. Because Donald Trump is really never wrong. Think about it. He is never wrong.”It's a cult

— Republicans Against Trumpism (@rpsagainsttrump.bsky.social) 2024-11-18T21:00:32.303Z

On Tuesday, the CFO of Walmart, John David Rainey, said his company “could have to raise prices on some items” if Trump’s proposed tariffs go into effect, CNBC reported.

“We never want to raise prices,” he said in an interview. “Our model is everyday low prices. But there probably will be cases where prices will go up for consumers.”

Rainey said it was too soon to say what would cost more under the tariff scheme.

The CFO of home improvement retailer Lowe’s said that about 40 percent of the cost of its goods come from some place other than the U.S., and tariffs “certainly would add product costs.”

Reuters reported Tuesday that, while CEOs were sort of waiting to see what Trump actually does come January regarding tariffs, “many have raised concerns about the effect such levies will have on inflation.”

Since September, execs from nearly 200 companies in the S&P Composite index have been talking about tariffs during earnings calls. That number is double the same period in the run-up to the 2020 election and much more than a mere 23 times in 2023, Reuters said.

Whether tariffs are a done deal is yet to be seen.

But the chances are higher, according to Barrons, because Trump nominated Howard Lutnick to head the Commerce Department. 

Lutnick, CEO of the investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald, is known to be a fan of tariffs.

Tariffs will make prices lower and Mcdonalds will make everyone healthy and a criminal will end crime.

— God (@godpod.bsky.social) 2024-11-19T00:12:01.024Z

To put it all into perspective, UBS, the multinational investment bank, said its economists estimate that a 20 percent tariff on a finished product would yield an average price increase of 8 percent.

The question then will be, how will you pay for your eggs and bacon after the tariffs kick in?

Lead art: Screen grab from Google Maps.